The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1887-09-15

in the Great Cities of the East-Or-
ganized Ideas and Moral Forces the
Hope of the Tax-Cursed Masses.
Correspondence Louisville Courier-1ournaf.
Three ar shR Rich I'M Men 1 fell in the other day
~ with a party of old
friends-three in number and three of
kind-who, in the aggregate, r..pre-
sent twenty millions of dollars Thir
ty years ago each one of them was a
poor young man beginning the busi-
ness career which, before any of them
has passed the meridian of life, has
brought to all of them such excess of
fortune. We had scarcely got togeth-
er when they began to exclaim against
me. Free Trade, they declared, will
ruin the country And that was the
long and the short oft.
"Do you happen to know of any
body entitled to consideration who is
seriously proposing Free Trader" 1
ventured to ask.
Yes said they in breath, "you
are"
"Anybody else ?" / asked.
Certainly; Carlisle and Morrison,
and the whole crazy ships crew of you.
1t is dashed beastly shame. 1t will
ruin the country. You ought to have
more sense"
"Gentlemen,' said I" such talk as
this is proof positive that you did not
make the millions you clsim as the
product of your energy and genius.
The Government set up a swindling
machine, and you stood around while
this swindling machine filled your
pockets with its ill-got bounties Tens
of thousands of hardworking people
have been Systematically robbed in
order that you might get rich. Never
in the history of mankind have for
tunes accumulated SO rapidly-not
even in the days of the Rhine Barons,
or of the pirates OF the Spanish Main.
The lawless devices of highway are
nothing by comparison with the free
booting arts of the lobby at Washing
ton. None of the great European
houses got their estates short of CEN
turies of gradual acquisition but here
stand before me three crop headed
speculators in the blood and treasure
of thesr countryside ignorant to be
dishonest who, in three short decades
have amassed more money than exist
ed IN all the world at the moment
when the first Protectionists passed
over those twenty pieces of blood-mon-
ey to JuCas Iscariot. Rich as you
are, you ought to be bored for the
simples. What do you know about
tariff? All that you do know is that
you are rich: and, being so, you nat
urally want no change in the unequal
laws, which have taken less than thir-
| ty years to enrich you at the expense
of others. / will not defend myself
against such blockheads, nor discuss
any serious thing with you. But this
let me tell you; nobody is talking or
thinking about free trade; there are
those, however, who would take up
this great question of business and
treat it in business like way; and
if the unselfish aims and enlightened
plans Of these be, thwarted by your
idiocy and money, look surely to see
the mob do that you had better let be
done by statesmen. Your smart at
torneys in Congress and in the lobby
your learned lacqueys in the press can
not forever blind the eyes of the poor
devils who work your mines and mills
with the chaff about the protection Of
home industry and the American
workman Soon or late this Ameri
can workman will learn for himself
the way you cheat and pluck him
and woe be to you when he does find
out how he has been used by the tar
if. Woe"
"W-o OH" cried my trio with one
voice. "Cut it, and let's go and take
somethingp'
And this is the way the rich men o
the East dispose of all troublesom,
questions of internal economy.
- =